That's where you'll find the map shown in the well-produced video above, a simple and solid take on Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball". Of course there are loads more levels to try out -- You can take Octodad on a disastrous romp through a scaled-down city, climb a behemoth version of the game's antagonist, try to keep your limbs in line in a Zero G grocery store, and even test out prototype stages from the game's development. If you're not happy with what's available, you can also make and share your own content with the Octodad level editor.

Sure, Octodad can't hope to dethrone games like Skyrim at the top of the modding food chain... But Skyrim doesn't have Wrecking Ball, now does it?

I'll just come right out and say it: "Daddy/Daughter Lets Play Minecraft" might just be one of the most underrated (and adorable) series' of Minecraft videos on YouTube.

The titular Daddy, Ronin 1011, might have a penchant for first-person shooters, but while his daughter "Princess Flower" (a.k.a. Little Bear #1) is on her laptop nearby they make a perfect pair of miners, builders, and zombie-fighters. Even the smallest milestones (like building their first house and taming a wolf) are punctuated with Princess Flower's delight, while every dark cave and looming zombie is made that much more intense.

Full disclosure here, but I have a soft spot for these kinds of videos. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of playing games with my dad, either on his old Intellivision or the Sega Genesis that came after it. I liked being able to trail after him as Tails, or hand the controller over when Ecco The Dolphin got too tricky and/or scary. I remember leaning over the back of the couch, playing with a toy german shepherd while watching him mow down pixellated nazis in the stone halls of Wolfenstein. It's likely because of that time we spent together that I look at games like Minecraft and wish I was 20 years younger, or even that I had a little bear of my own to explore them with.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

During my interview with Linden Lab's new CEO Ebbe Altberg, the executive had this to say about Linden Lab's products beyond Second Life and Blocksworld: "“We’ll do some clean-up, there’s some things that are not as aligned." And indeed, only minutes after I was posting the interview (less than two weeks of Altberg being CEO), Linden Lab announced it was discontinuing dio, Versu, and Creatorverse -- all of which were 2D or text-based content creation platforms. This means Linden Lab's remaining products have a focus on 3D content creation and user interaction within a 3D space: Second Life and Creatorverse, of course, plus Patterns (Minecraft meets Doritos man) and Desura (digital distribution of user-made content, primarily 3D-based content, including game levels).

While dio, Versu, and Creatorverse have not gained much evident user traction, I believe that's also the case with Patterns. So this move doesn't seem to be strictly about killing unpopular products, but as Altberg suggested in my interview, focusing the company only on products more aligned around Second Life -- which I interpret to mean 3D interaction and building.

Here at New World Notes we've asked our readers what your favourite blogs are, who your favourite designers are, even who the hottest male avatars in the virtual world are... But not what your favourite games are. Yesterday I did just that, and the response (spread out across the comments section, email, Plurk, and Twitter) was much stronger than I'd anticipated... And I'm not one to leave a big pile of interesting data like this untapped. What started out as an honest question is now begging to become a Readers Choice feature just like the top blogs, brands, and boys lists we've run in the past.

There'stremendous variety among those responses. Big budget RPGs sit shoulder-to-shoulder with tiny independent games in our readers' Steam libraries. Of course there are also many games that come up again and again... And in many cases they may not be the games you would expect. That's why, in my opinion, this may turn out to be our most interesting Readers Choice yet.

I'll be tallying up the top 5 titles and sharing the results next week, but here's what you can do in the meantime: Make sure your voice is heard. If you haven't already submitted your faves, head over and comment on the original post, on Facebook, on Plurk, or email me at ophelia.iris [at] gmail [dot] com before Monday. Name as many or as few games as you like, whether they're on classic or current consoles, PCs, mobile, even pen & paper platforms. And, of course, keep your eyes peeled for the full list next week!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Though he is Linden Lab’s new CEO now, one of Ebbe Altberg’s first experiences with Second Life occurred over 10 years ago, and as it happens, actually involved a violation of Second Life policy. It was around that time, you see, that Altberg’s son fell in love with Second Life, and became an avid builder there. Which is usually a fine thing, but here’s the problem: Altberg’s son was a young teen at the time, and back then they were strictly not allowed:

Altberg convinced then CEO Philip Rosedale to be lenient, but by that time, Altberg’s young son had become a well-known content creator in Second Life, and had revealed his age to his adult collaborators in SL (who were very surprised to learn how young he was). So Altberg’s son was booted from the main grid of Second Life, and when Teen Second Life opened around 2005, found himself exiled there. Frustrated by how comparably poor the quality of content was there, Ebbe’s boy began working with someone in the main grid to export content from Second Life proper to Second Life’s teenage wasteland. (As one of the early teen users described it to me, back in the day.)

Despite all that, Ebbe's son stayed engaged in Second Life for a couple years, and even co-founded an in-world design company. And being among the first explorers of Teen Second Life, one of that world’s original islands was even named after the avatar of Ebbe Altberg’s son. And Ebbe Altberg watched all this amazed: “For a kid to have this experience so early was fantastic,” as he puts it now.

Linden Lab’s new CEO tells me all this when I ask him how long he’s been involved with Linden Lab. “I feel like I’ve been part of Second Life and Linden Lab for many years,” says Altberg. For not only does he know Philip Rosedale and one of Second Life’s very first investors, there’s the experiences with his son, and his watching all the successive CEOs (starting with Rosedale) come and go over the years.

But strictly speaking, Ebbe Altberg has been on the job of Linden Lab CEO since February 10. So that in mind, I spoke with him in the broadest terms about his task ahead, for the company in general and Second Life in particular, and why he’s the right person to take the lead on both.

I love games -- I adore them, really -- and I've been very fortunate that Hamlet's gladly let me write about them here. I've covered some of the biggest releases of the past few years longside some of the most under-the-radar independant ones. I've written about everything from screenshots to social issues in the gaming world nd loved almost every second of it. But...

It's occurred to me that, because of this, you probably know way more about my gaming habits and history than I do yours, and personally I'd like to rebalance those scales just a little bit.

So here's what I want to know: When you're not keeping busy in the metaverse, where do you spend your gaming energy? Can you claim roots in Mobius or the Mushroom Kingdom? Are you a master of the console, a ruler of handhelds, a maven of mobile games, or PC/Mac through and through? Do you lean Indie, or are you AAA all the way? Do you slay dragons, or do you prefer to puzzle them? Sandbox or sandshrew?

"I don’t really consider myself a ‘gamer,’ but I also don’t think that ‘game’ would describe Second Life either, and I’ve found Second Life intriguing for a long time. In addition to having personally explored the virtual world a bit back when it first started (of course I’m diving in more now), my son was a very active Resident as a teenager, and I’ve been consistently impressed by the incredible things the Second Life community creates. I’m proud to be joining the team that enables this level of creativity, and as I said in our press release, I’m committed to supporting our customers to help you become even more successful."

I got a chance to have a one-on-one chat with Ebbe just before he made this announcement, and will be posting highlights from it here very soon. Two sneak preview points for now:

Let's say the world ended tomorrow. Not ended ended, but ended in the the way it ends in so much post-apocalyptic fiction. The few remaining humans are left scavenging through increasingly limited ressources for things of use -- weapons, food, clothes, the usual. But among the potentially useful detritus of civilization, you still have all these now-useless artifacts of a much more comfortable time. When you're scavenging through suburban ruins with only have a pair of pants and a bottle of irradiated water to your name, what good is an old Polaroid camera?

Now it's no secret that I love a good videogame screenshot blog, but Apocalypse Polaroids, a collection of mock-Polaroid snapshots taken in mod-turned-standalone survival game DayZ, is a little different. It's an example of what that game does best -- Highlight the humanity (and inhumanity) of its players in some of the most unexpected ways -- condensed into images and framed in one of the most sentimental ways possible. Polaroid photos. Bent, dirty, scribbled on...

So it's the end of the world, and you have an old Polaroid camera. One pack of instant film. What would you do with it? You'd probably do the same thing you do with your camera now. You'd take pictures of your friends, you'd take pictures of your surroundings, you'd take pictures of the things that shock you and the things that inspire you. You'd record your life.